Broadway Bound but Staying Put

‘Ragtime” opens in New York on Jan. 18--which also is the last day for which tickets are now being sold for the Los Angeles production. Does this mean that ours will close as theirs opens?

Apparently not. The Los Angeles production is expected to continue at least into March, producer Garth Drabinsky said last week.

If so, it will be the first time that a new show has opened on Broadway while a different company of the same production concurrently plays in another U.S. city, according to researchers at the League of American Theatres and Producers in New York.

Many shows have continued their London productions during their Broadway openings. And Drabinsky himself opened his revival of “Show Boat” in New York while a Canadian company continued in Toronto. But in the U.S., producers traditionally convert the pre-Broadway company into the Broadway company--and/or later launch post-Broadway touring companies that capitalize on all the attention paid to Broadway.

Drabinsky, however, has never felt constrained by old ways of doing theater business.

The big question is whether L.A.’s “Ragtime” can afford to keep going into January and beyond. Late summer box-office reports weren’t encouraging. The show’s weekly gross at the Shubert Theatre, as reported in Variety, fell from $816,689 the week after it opened to $521,939 in the week of Sept. 15-21. A totally sold-out house would gross $1,052,080, according to Variety.

Drabinsky said that the September lull was predictable, because it coincided with the beginning of school and a new TV season. He also noted that “we opened at a weird time”--mid-June. Livent doesn’t disclose the break-even point for its shows, but most informed observers speculate that the show can’t be making much of a profit, given its costs.

More recently, the weekly take began a small rebound, to $527,031 for Sept. 22-28. Later figures weren’t available at press time.

Drabinsky reported “a significant bump” in advance sales (which aren’t reflected in weekly grosses) after the Oct. 1 announcement that “Ragtime” was nominated for 16 Ovation Awards--more than any other production in the four years of competitive Ovations. This bump may grow as the show’s ads spread the word about the Ovations and after the awards are presented on Nov. 17 (at the Shubert, with a “Ragtime” set in the background). It’s certainly the most significant Ovations-related box-office bump ever reported; in most cases, contenders for the Ovations close before nominations are announced.

Publicity surrounding the Broadway opening may also help the L.A. company, Drabinsky suggested. However, if the Broadway opening giveth, it also taketh--the L.A. company’s most acclaimed actor, Brian Stokes Mitchell, will leave sometime in early November in order to play on Broadway.

He’ll be replaced here by Kingsley Leggs, who has gone on in the role of Coalhouse often while serving as the Toronto understudy. Leggs is “unbelievably strong,” Drabinsky said--and Mitchell never has been advertised as the star of the show. Still, it’s possible that Mitchell’s absence could at least temporarily affect the box office.

Meanwhile, Drabinsky has altered the show’s schedule in a way that appears to be reaping results. Wednesday matinees began every other week on Sept. 24 and will begin a weekly schedule on Nov. 5 (except holiday weeks), replacing the Tuesday evening shows.

According to a Shubert representative, these will be the first once-a-week weekday matinees at the Shubert since “Annie” in 1979. Parking fees were a problem--until recently, daytime weekday parking at the Shubert during a show could cost as much as $15 instead of the $5 charged during the evening. However, beginning with monthly weekday matinees during “Beauty and the Beast,” the garage managers and the Shubert devised a way to charge weekday matinee theatergoers only $5, separating them from the other users of the garage. Curtain time is 1:30 instead of the weekend’s 2 p.m., in order to lessen rush hour congestion after the show.

Many of those who go to the matinees come by bus, anyway, as members of student or seniors groups. Student groups participate in special pre-show programs. Because the matinees focus sales on these particular audiences, they’re virtually selling out. Tuesdays weren’t selling nearly as well.